Serving in the Mexico Mérida Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

I feel the Spirit pumping through me...and miracles happen

Querida Fameeleea,

Sorry for my last letter that was a little negative.

THANK YOU to everyone who wrote to me about obedience! Aw... I feel
like I have a support group. :) That helps a lot.

Here are my thoughts from this week on obedience. I feel
like my problem is not “Will I be obedient or not?” but “If I’m going to be
obedient, what should I do?” There’s a missionary schedule that to be ‘obedient’
you have to follow to the second. And it’s a really good idea because if
you even mess with the timing a little bit, something essential gets cut and
there just isn’t time to make it up and you feel the burn. BUT what about
the higher law of “Love thy God with all they heart
and love thy neighbor?” If I am presented with an opportunity to show
charity to someone that would require breaking the schedule, should
I do it? In my heart I think ‘probably’, but then when I feel the
sting of the consequences of breaking the schedule I think “maybe I
wasn’t supposed to do that. I should have been more exactly obedient.” BUT
maybe I’m supposed to suffer the penalty of breaking a rule as part of my
sacrifice for another person’s well-being.

Things like this are running through my mind all day. It
was driving me kind of crazy and I was getting kind of fed up with trying
to work everything out in my mind. So I
finally just said to Heavenly Father “You KNOW I’m trying to be obedient, I’m
trying to to do what you want. I’m willing to sacrifice to do
that if you will just make it CLEAR to me what it is that you want.” I
felt like that was a pretty fair trade.

And then I thought, “Wait a sec. That’s my baptismal
covenant. Ohhhh....”So. I was thinking
that Heavenly Father gave the Law of Moses to the Israelites to tell them
EXACTLY what was the right thing to do in every instance. No exceptions.
Exceptions meant death. But, when Christ
came something marvelous happened called the New and Everlasting COVENANT. Now
there is no longer a pre-dictated course of action for every choice. Instead,
Heavenly Father says “You promise to follow me and do my will, and I’ll give
you a guide called the Holy Ghost to help you know what that my will is in
every instance.” That puts a lot more pressure on us, doesn’t it?

Really, we will only
be able to know what the will of the Lord is to the degree that we desire
to do it. And Heavenly Father knew we were going to mess up and have a
really hard time interpreting the Holy Ghost and it was going to take a lot of
mess-ups for us to learn how. It was also going to take a lot of work for us to
get to the point where we wanted what Heavenly Father wanted. So he
gave us a way to erase our mess-ups called the Atonement. Which also happens
to be able to change our hearts to want what Heavenly Father wants, or at least
to give us the strength to do it.

My other problem was that after my last cambio (transfer), I was feeling like my
spiritual compass was really out of whack, that I couldn’t tell what the Spirit
was telling me to do. I think part of that was a natural consequence for not
working (even though I couldn’t help it because of sickness) and also Satan
messing things up. If he can make us think we can’t understand the Spirit, we
won’t be able to. I need to have faith that Heavenly Father loves me enough to
give me the direction I need. President also gave me a blessing to be able to have
more clear discernment of spiritual promptings. I walked out of his office a
very happy missionary, like I had been dragging around this thing behind me and
somebody just cut it.

PUES, I didn’t explain very well what my calling is--
instead of having my own area, I travel from area to area every one
or two days to work with the Hermanas there and look at what they can do to
improve and set goals with them. And I check up with them a lot.
And if they have problems, they call me. I get my own phone. :) You
would be surprised how many problems there are.

We made a small change because the new companion of Hermana
De Leon went home this morning, so I suggested to Presidente that I be her
companion this transfer and just do exchanges with the Hermanas like
before (one of them goes with Hna De Leon while I go with the other in their
area.) So Hna De Leon también (also) got
made a Training Leader (President said “Yes, that sounds good”) and I get to
see Hermana De Leon every day and Hermana De Leon gets to work in her area
still and I get to hang out in Mulsay every once in a while. Hermana De Leon
gets a break from problem companions because she changes her companion every
day! It’s a pretty good play-out.

I was really scared the Hermanas weren’t going to trust me
or that I wasn’t going to be able to make good comments or that they wouldn’t
listen, but it is SO great because when we sit down to talk I just feel the Spirit pumping through me
and miracles happen and we communicate and we set real-deal S.M.A.R.T.
goals with a purpose. When I talk to
them about it later, they are actually doing
it and CHANGES are happening. To be very honest, our mission is kind of
sick, but the four of us Leader Capacitadoras are having all of
these really great ideas of what big changes need to be made, and I think
we’re really going to do
something. I feel like a missionary again! I haven’t felt this good in
like a month and a half.

Called to Serve

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The kind of faith I want to have...

"The spirit of this work is urgency... We must move more rapidly. We must take things up a notch. If we have to call down miracles of angels, then call them down. The drama is unfolding and we must do whatever it takes to ratchet up the work... Every dispensation begins with a vision. We must have a vision. We are the church that dreams dreams. We are the church that has visions. We must believe in miracles. We must believe and build on what our forefathers have done…We must live up to our potential. God will bless us with whatever we need. God wants us to just see what He sees and know what He knows. He wants us to ratchet up the vision. God is easy to please and hard to satisfy...This is not convenient, easy work. We have got to take things to the edge. We have to move into the realm of the miraculous. We have to live in such a way that we cannot do it alone anymore- where we will resort to the Lord--where we will cry, “Without thy help, I will fall. Help me fly.” Go to the edge where miracles happen. Move into the realm of the miraculous." --Elder Jeffrey R. Holland